Andreas lives in the mountains of Switzerland close to Zürich. Despite his young age he already traveled many countries and carried a lot of responsibility for his projects as a cableway constructor in Russia and other parts of the world. At an early age he starts to take his own decisions to feel free and liberated. No matter the consequences. He knows what it feels like not to fit in his surroundings and how to provoke his fellow men to get to the core.

Versatile. But simple. Like a chameleon, I guess. I can go anywhere and I manage. I’m proud of the fact that I can throw myself into any environment. I can change faces without giving away my character. It basically always suits the situation. Someone once told me I was rejective at first. But that once one gets to know me, I’m a very interesting person. I’m someone who likes to solve their own problems and doesn’t go around asking how they should go about things. I’m very independent and proud that I have a sense for what’s good for me and what isn’t.

I may often seem restless. I have to experience things, look around, do things, but I have an inner peace where I know that whatever I do, it will work out. And if it doesn’t, I’ve learned something. But nothing ever happens that knocks me off track. I just have this fundamental trust in myself that I will manage.

I’m very good at deciding on things that only have to do with me. But I have a lot of difficulty as soon as other people are involved. Especially when it comes to love. I’m not someone to go peddling, to go on the offensive and ask for attention. I just think I have trouble standing up for myself and my needs. I like provoking. My favourite question to people when they introduce themselves and tell me what they do professionally is whether they wouldn’t have preferred to do something cool. I’m often misunderstood. I never attack a person, I only attack a subject. I need to be a little more delicate in that regard. Provoking is a characteristic that helps me get to know people. In a way that I wouldn’t otherwise. So it’s not a bad trait. Of course it might be a naive outlook on things. I’m disappointed by how people take everything personally.

I’m most grateful for the fact that I know what the value of experiencing things is. The value of enjoyment, of working on things, of relaxing, listening, feeling, seeing… Not to just function, but to live, that’s what I’m grateful for. I don’t want to go through life feeling like a victim. To make decisions, experience the consequences and know that I was the one to take that direction is one of the nicest things, and you can be grateful for it when you compare it to those who simply blame their surroundings at the same moment when faced with the same problem. The possibility to make decisions, that’s what living means. Every time you blame the environment and society for your failures you’re betraying yourself. That’s an ungrateful way to live. Putting your own happiness into other people’s hands. As if the most important thing in the world is that other people make sure I’m happy. That’s irresponsible towards yourself.

When I can’t understand why the rest of the world thinks differently from me. I’m a bit of an oddball among my friends. So I wish that the world could see things with my eyes. In the end, that’s exactly what makes me unique. But I miss having someone who functions in the same way or realising that people feel the same way as I do. I don’t like my powerlessness in that situation. I might wake up in the middle of the night, for example, go to the fridge and eat something. And then I tell people this and some say: I’d never eat anything after 11pm, because it makes you fat. It’s not about whether it makes you fat or not. It’s the experience: I’m tasting, smelling – that’s life. It’s such a shame when you’re the only one living and everyone else is just functioning and numb and are running after some sort of stereotype. Those are lonely moments for me.

It makes me sad when I see people are not pursuing the same objective. When I went to Russia [to build a cableway], I thought, “I could get everyone into one boat and do a fantastic job”. Then I had to learn that there are people who don’t working towards a joint objective. Instead, they just work for themselves. And that there will always be some people who are only in it for their own profit and thus threaten the entire success of a project. Knowingly. That hurt. I was really devastated about that, because a part of my faith in the world, in humanity, went lost at that moment.

I’m happy to simply know that I will always find a way somehow. That I’m not dependent on others’ support. It makes me happy that I’m independent, and have enough confidence to fight to get to where I need or want to go. I accept every challenge. Even when I might be afraid of it. At the end of my life I’d like to sit on a bench, look back on my life and say, “I always faced up to everything that happened to me.” I have an image of my grandfather sitting up there, wearing women’s sunglasses and a really old, washed out cap. And this peace, this contentment, this acceptance, this curiosity in your golden years – my grandfather had a mobile phone before my father did. That’s what I see, and that’s my example. I want to sit there and know that it was fantastic. That’s all I wish for in my life. You can feel happiness when you’ve experienced the opposite. Otherwise happiness just becomes an ordinary, everyday thing. Happiness is a sign of joy, and that you’ve attained and overcome something. And that’s not something you can just have on standby, something that’s always there. It’s always a process within oneself and a question of how you get there, what did you listen to and what didn’t you listen to. And because I’m someone who listens to their gut instincts, I often stumble into my luck without really wanting to. That’s nice.

I haven’t always stood up for myself. Sometimes I took the easy road. I regret that I didn’t stay true to myself in these moments. To know you didn’t do everything you could have done – I regret that. I regret that by deciding to take the easiest road, I disappointed other people. And that there is this disappointment, this breach of trust that I can’t repair again.

The problem I bring to a relationship is that under no circumstance do I want to be the most important thing in, or the centre of, another person’s life. I want to be a part of their life, but not their life itself. I don’t want to be responsible for the failure or success of a life, just part of it. I want to experience life with them, support them in it, but I don’t want to be the reason why it works or doesn’t work. I don’t want a relationship because I don’t want to be alone. I want to have a relationship to have a partner I love. I want to have someone who opens a door and the world to me and completes me, supports me, not someone who needs me to help them brush their teeth.

10. Was waren schöne Momente in deinem Leben? / What were great moments in your life?

The best moments are when I come home. After I’ve been away and then drive into Glarus (Switzerland), seeing all those mountains in white, as they always were. They will be there as long as I am. The joy of knowing that everyone I love and need is here. I’ve had tears well up in my eyes when I returned home. That’s one of the most beautiful things there is for me. If it weren’t for the coming home, going away wouldn’t be fun.